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I was trying to update my understanding of R-U106 and I was helped by the data (table below) communicated to me by Mike Maddi from the data collected in the U106 project :http://www.familytreedna.com/public/U106/Country____________U106 Count_______Total Count2_______R-U106/ 1000 men

CE - Central EuropeNEE - North East EuropeNWE - North West EuropeSca - ScandinaviaSEE - South East EuropeSWE - South West EuropeUK&I - United Kingdom & Ireland

I would like to comment on these data. First of all, I didn't yet compare to what's available in the scientific articles published on the subject. There might be some discrepancies. Please, speak up if you noticed any differences.

Belgium is trated as one unit but we learned from the Brabant study posted on dna-forums that there is a sharp difference between northern Belgium which is like Nederlands and southern Belgium similar to France with low R-U106 levels.

In Europe, as a whole, R-U106 dispersion seems similar to R-L21, excepted for France but data about France are still difficult to address.My idea is that it looks like R-U106 went along with R-L21 but NOT with R-U152 and the relative frequencies of R-U106 in Europe might be driven by some kind of opposition between R-U106 and R-U152. I draw this conclusion mostly from continental data and I don't know if it can apply to British isles where the settlements might have had a different time frame.On what ground could have been the opposition ? I am wondering whether R-U106 were cattle breeders - some kind of "cow boys". May be the deal with R-L21 was to provide meat but R-U152 may have been also cattle breeders and they had no need of competitors. The reason I think cattle may be the key factor is the choice of Nederlands, an open land with no deep forests. Just a guess.Didier

EDIT: Does anyone know how to make a font monospace (usually courier) so that tables will come correctly? EDIT: Use "font=Courier" inside brackets to start and use "/font" to end.

I note the percentages in Scandinavia aren't particularly high, and that the percentage in south Germany is a bit higher than north Germany. None of these are even half of the percentage in the Netherlands.

I note the percentages in Scandinavia aren't particularly high, and that the percentage in south Germany is a bit higher than north Germany. None of these are even half of the percentage in the Netherlands.

I've noted before that I find the bucketing of datapoints into North and South Germany to be questionable. If you drew an east-west line across Germany halfway or used online self-descriptions (like Frankfurt is SW Germany), then a number of datapoints in the project could easily be classified as South Germany. Also, there is one spot in Central Germany (counted as North, of course) with 7 hits in the same place. This looks like a possible family cluster.

It's also interesting to look at the actual datapoints in the Netherlands. I haven't been able to check them in the last few days as the map data is always "Loading...". But they cluster along the Rhine and not in the northern Netherlands, I'm pretty sure. Similarly, Belgium has a number of datapoints. The main story in Germany based on the project datapoints is really the concentration near the Rhine, in my opinion.

I note the percentages in Scandinavia aren't particularly high, and that the percentage in south Germany is a bit higher than north Germany. None of these are even half of the percentage in the Netherlands.

I've noted before that I find the bucketing of datapoints into North and South Germany to be questionable. If you drew an east-west line across Germany halfway or used online self-descriptions (like Frankfurt is SW Germany), then a number of datapoints in the project could easily be classified as South Germany. Also, there is one spot in Central Germany (counted as North, of course) with 7 hits in the same place. This looks like a possible family cluster.

It's also interesting to look at the actual datapoints in the Netherlands. I haven't been able to check them in the last few days as the map data is always "Loading...". But they cluster along the Rhine and not in the northern Netherlands, I'm pretty sure. Similarly, Belgium has a number of datapoints. The main story in Germany based on the project datapoints is really the concentration near the Rhine, in my opinion.

The FTDNA U106 map seems to be functional again today so I was able to check it out. The cluster of 7 is just NW of Erfurt, and the details indicate they're "country datapoints" assigned to either Germany or the Palatinate. The pins are in the area widely advertised as the geographic center of Germany. Points for the Palatinate probably are placed here incorrectly and should be further south and west.

Wikipedia has this quote about Erfurt: "Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and is the main city nearest to the geographic center of Germany."

For more on geographic placement, see the Wikipedia article on "Southern Germany" which has the best small map showing the standard division of Germany into a southern, central, and northern area.

One speculation I recently made was the possibility that U152 was largely Germanic in origin. Until this study the lack of proven decent prevalence of U152 in parts of the old Celtic world that were not later overrun by Germanic peoples (ii.e. Ireland, Scotland, Iberia and much of France) meant that there was still a possibility that U152's presence was down to Germanic (perhaps Suevic) tribes. However, this study shows too much U152 in France and western France in particular to feel comfortable Germanic spread theory for U152. Indeed there would seem to be more U152 in France than Germany although it is not exactly spectacular in either. I think on balance it looks like it must at least be partly, possibly mainly, Celtic.

Looking over the results there is also the fact that U106 is strong in the south 17.6% and west 24% of Germany and the east of France 12%. The strength of U106 in that area is not as that clade is usually described. In fact U106 looks as strong in the south and west of Germany as it is in the north and east. To be honest I had notice on the project maps that they were indicating a lot of U106 along the Rhine and in SW Germany. This paper actually places A LOT more U106 than U152 in S and W Germany. Again, when I compared the project maps early this year they actually did indeed indicate more U106 than U152 in south and west Germany. So again, a trend which was thought to potentially be due to new world migration patters has proven to be real. There is also a of U106 in Switzerland and Austria noted in this paper. One very enlightening thing is that U106 is the high 18.8% (similar to SW Germany) in NE Switzerland but an absolute collapse to only 3.7% in NW Switzerland. In the latter area where U106 suddenly drops U152 rises to 22.2% and L21 also rises to 7.4%. It is very tempting to see that as some sort of boundary line in terms of Germanic settlement although there are a myriad of possible alternative reasons. I am not sure how Switzerland was divided up but all of the west including what seems to be the north-west is French speaking while the north-east is in the large German speaking area. Someone posted something suggesting that the Brabant study also showed a big drop in U106 near the German-French speaking boundary. That is interesting and it does kind of suggest that the R1b1b2 element among the Gauls was largely a variable mix of S116* (including Iberian clades), U152 and L21 while U106 mainly entered the old Celtic world and Roman empire as a result of German movements. There are of course alternative possibilities.

I copied the R-M269 data out of the Brabant study."Micro-geographic distribution of Y-chromosomal variation in the central-western European region Brabant" by Larmuseau et al.http://tiny.cc/ofu7y

Quote from: Larmuseau

The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries containing three contemporary Belgian provinces and one Dutch province (Noord-Brabant). A clear gradient was found with higher frequencies of R1b1b2(R-M269) chromosomes in the northern vs. southern regions, mainly related to a trend in the frequency of R1b1b2a1(R-U106).

The difference in the frequency of R haplogroups was circa 10% between the most northern and southern part, mainly due to the downward frequency of R1b1b2a1(R-U106). Nevertheless, it was remarkable that the network analyses could not differentiate all observed subhaplogroups within R1b1b2(R-M269)and I2b(I-M223). This might be due to the relatively young age of these specific subhaplogroups making it impossible to differentiate these groups based on the Y-STRs.

It's strange that they didn't include Austria, Switzerland, and The Netherlands, but they do acknowledge Austria's high frequency for R-U106 (R1b1b2g.)

Quote from: Cruciani

This conforms to previous studies which reported a high frequency of the haplogroup R1b1b2g in northern and central Europe (Austria 18.5–22.7%, Denmark 17.7%, England 21.7%, Germany 20.5%, Netherlands 37.2%).

The study shows R-U106 to be slightly older than R-U152 (R1b1b2h). Since my own variance calculations show R-U152 as old as R-P312 itself my conclusion is th R-U106 is slightly older than R-P312. This agrees with Anatole K's numbers and I think Vince V has stated this before too, although U106 and P312 are probably close enough in age to just consider equivalent.

The study shows R-U106 to be slightly older than R-U152 (R1b1b2h). Since my own variance calculations show R-U152 as old as R-P312 itself my conclusion is th R-U106 is slightly older than R-P312. This agrees with Anatole K's numbers and I think Vince V has stated this before too, although U106 and P312 are probably close enough in age to just consider equivalent.

Don't be alarmed by the fact that U152 is greater than P312. That is just a reflection of the variance. I get the same thing (although don't get his confidence intervals.) U152's variance is slightly greater than all of P312's and L21's is slightly less.

One thing that still puzzles me on TMRCA's is even the new studies that show "Neolithic" timeframes for P312, U106, etc. still don't seem to correlate with the variance in a straight line fashion the way Ken N says age should. If I use a straight line fashion and work from modern times backward using TMRCA calculators like FTDNA's, McGee's, Janzen, etc., etc. I get ages for P312, U152, L21 and U106 similar to what Anatole K is calculating. These are clearly younger than the studies associating the Neolithic advances. Compare Cruciani's 8.3K ybp for U106 with Anatole's 4.174K ybp... about half.

In other words, the TMRCA's that I can link in a straight line with variance agree with Anatole's and they seem to directly overlay the timing of Bronze Age expansions.

I guess I need to understand interclade variance better, rather than intraclade variance. Tim J has taken Ken N's latest version of interclade variance calculations and put them into an easier to use spreadsheet, but Tim still thinks the TMRCA's still add up like Anatole's.

It's strange that they didn't include Austria, Switzerland, and The Netherlands, but they do acknowledge Austria's high frequency for R-U106 (R1b1b2g.)

Quote from: Cruciani

This conforms to previous studies which reported a high frequency of the haplogroup R1b1b2g in northern and central Europe (Austria 18.5–22.7%, Denmark 17.7%, England 21.7%, Germany 20.5%, Netherlands 37.2%).

The study shows R-U106 to be slightly older than R-U152 (R1b1b2h). Since my own variance calculations show R-U152 as old as R-P312 itself my conclusion is th R-U106 is slightly older than R-P312. This agrees with Anatole K's numbers and I think Vince V has stated this before too, although U106 and P312 are probably close enough in age to just consider equivalent.

Note that M269XU106XU152 vastly outnumbers U106 in Denmark (31.4% to 22.9%). In my opinion this statistic alone is enough to disprove the idea that all R1b Germanics were U106.

I agree that all R-M269+ Germanic people were not all R-U106, perhaps not even the majority were.

However, I still think this is a "can of worms." Italics, Celtics and Germanics were all Centum Indo-Europeans. When you look in the can you might find that the worms are of these three different colors, but the worms will be covered with mud so their colors will hard to discern. Also, it's hard to keep one end of the worm separate from the other and some worms will appear to have two colors. Some of these worms also appear to change colors like a chameleon.

What I mean these peoples have a similar origin but mixed with each other multiple times as they expanded. Apparently those on the northern frontier did a little more mixing with the prior inhabitants (i.e. Hg I peoples). At some point there was a pre-Celtic, pre-Italic and pre-Germanic that were all the same thing. Also, at points, a proto-Celtic lineage may have integrated into a pre-Germanic tribe or vice versa. Clearly, many Celtic lineages eventually learned Germanic languages as in England. Also some Germanics, such as in France may have picked up an Italo-Celtic based language.... remember, Henri Huberts said French is what a Latin would sound like if spoken by a Gaul. The Franks apparently learned that language too.

Where do you think this started in the Western European landscape?

Quote from: Wikipedia

The contemporary Beaker culture overlapped with the western extremity of this culture, west of the Elbe, and may have contributed to the pan-European spread of that culture. Although a similar social organization and settlement pattern to the Beaker were adopted, the Corded Ware group lacked the new refinements made possible through trade and communication by sea and rivers.

By the way, I've seen some people call R-U106 people "river Celts." Is there any sense at all to that?

MikewwwAre you saying in short that IE or proto IE people and probably some neighbours, entered Europe mixing with each other.These people may or may not have been a tribe or tribe at any point. Originating from SW.Asia or S Russia but mixing with the inhabitants where ever they went along in a haphazard manner? If so does that mean that any individuals lineage is just that. So for a hypothetical example a guy could have a Celtic farther a Germanic grand father an Italic ggfarther etc basically one direct line could go through many cultures over time and geography and some just stayed as they were and just changed with the `fashions' of the times. (this is in no-way a criticism just a question). please correct me jf Ive got this wrong.

MikewwwAre you saying in short that IE or proto IE people and probably some neighbours, entered Europe mixing with each other.These people may or may not have been a tribe or tribe at any point. Originating from SW.Asia or S Russia but mixing with the inhabitants where ever they went along in a haphazard manner?

Yes, absolutely, they mixed with the inhabitants at least in some cases. Just the fact that mtDNA and Y DNA patterns don't line up is good evidence that there has been mixing. I don't know if "haphazard" is a good description for it but it may have been very complex and dynamic.

I'm not sure what you mean be being or not being a tribe, though. There were more than one tribes of IE people.

Quote from: ad251964

If so does that mean that any individuals lineage is just that.

Yes, this is what Goldenhind often implies. An R-L21* person could have a Germanic lineage whereas another R-L21* lineage might have been Celtic. There might be a majority in one camp or the next, but in the end you may only care about your lineage.

Quote from: ad251964

So for a hypothetical example a guy could have a Celtic farther a Germanic grand father an Italic ggfarther etc basically one direct line could go through many cultures over time and geography and some just stayed as they were and just changed with the `fashions' of the times. (this is in no-way a criticism just a question). please correct me jf Ive got this wrong.

I doubt if things change so abruptly as every other generation,.

However, it would be quite easy to imagine a Y DNA lineage in a Italo-Celtic speaking tribe along the Danube River moving northward along a frontier of hunter gatherers and pre-Germanic IE speakers. Perhaps the lineage was kicked out or needed more land or was seeking fortune from metal or other traded goods. Ultimately, the lineage learned a pre-Germanic language, which perhaps wasn't that hard too learn.

To make the hypothetical more complex, the lineage's pre-Germanic tribe evolved into the Franks and this particular lineage moved into France with the Romano-Gauls. Most everyone there was speaking an Italic language (Latin) and eventually the linage picked it up and spoke what would become French. This French lineage may have come into England with the Normans and eventually began speaking an evolving Germanic based language, Old English. The could have gone on to Wales and then to Ireland where there came a time that they actually threw in with the Old Gaels and became "more Irish than the Irish" themselves.

This is all fiction, but no doubt there were that lineages joined or created new tribes as well as tribes that merged and split. Europe has NOT been a stagnant place for a long time. For example, we see Bell Beakers in England that are from the Alpine region and that was 2000 BC.

The study shows R-U106 to be slightly older than R-U152 (R1b1b2h). Since my own variance calculations show R-U152 as old as R-P312 itself my conclusion is th R-U106 is slightly older than R-P312. This agrees with Anatole K's numbers and I think Vince V has stated this before too, although U106 and P312 are probably close enough in age to just consider equivalent.

Don't be alarmed by the fact that U152 is greater than P312. That is just a reflection of the variance. I get the same thing (although don't get his confidence intervals.) U152's variance is slightly greater than all of P312's and L21's is slightly less.

One thing that still puzzles me on TMRCA's is even the new studies that show "Neolithic" timeframes for P312, U106, etc. still don't seem to correlate with the variance in a straight line fashion the way Ken N says age should. If I use a straight line fashion and work from modern times backward using TMRCA calculators like FTDNA's, McGee's, Janzen, etc., etc. I get ages for P312, U152, L21 and U106 similar to what Anatole K is calculating. These are clearly younger than the studies associating the Neolithic advances. Compare Cruciani's 8.3K ybp for U106 with Anatole's 4.174K ybp... about half.

In other words, the TMRCA's that I can link in a straight line with variance agree with Anatole's and they seem to directly overlay the timing of Bronze Age expansions.

I guess I need to understand interclade variance better, rather than intraclade variance. Tim J has taken Ken N's latest version of interclade variance calculations and put them into an easier to use spreadsheet, but Tim still thinks the TMRCA's still add up like Anatole's.

Tim redid his TMRCA's and here is his latest perspective from another forum's posting yesterday.

Just a comment on Iberia... M153 is the "Basque marker" and M167 is supposedly an "Iberian" clade. As you can see, neither are as old as U152 or L21. Since U152 and L21 are as old as P312, then no Iberian P312* unidentified clade will be older than U152 or L21.

Perhaps some Iberians did come up the coast in exchange/trade networks, but I just don't see how the bulk of P312 got to the Atlantic fringes other than directly, starting from some place back along the upper Rhine or upper Danube. To me, the Atlantic Celt concept is just a trade/exchange zone, not a significant people mover. If there was a Míl Espáine tribe, they were an elite group that didn't impact the population proportions of Ireland that much.

What I meant by `may or may not have not been a tribe ' small groups or families may have left several areas and on entering Europe became a`tribe' or a larger tribe may have split. Basically could they have been a mixture in there home land and a number of diffent subclades probably closely related. I say closely related because a few big things stand out (to me any way) that after around 10,000 BC there seems to the emergance of lactose tollerancethe first evidance of TB (9,000 BC (I was thinking there might be a link)) ,blue/green eyes domestication of the horse, metalworking, but I'm new to this genetic study and proably get most things wrong.

Prior to the early DNA interpretations and prior to recent attempts to push the Celts back into the early Bronze Age or even the Neolithic in recent times, it was for generations assumed were most of the megaliths were the work of pre-Celts who were displaced by the Celts. However, it was also implied for a long time that the modern 'fringe' Celts of Britain and Ireland were largely different from the continental Celts.

R1b1b2, especially S116 seems to disprove this. S116 seems to dominate in all of the former continental and island Celtic areas (which is not to say that S116 was only Celtic). I think the fact that DNA is implying that both the island and continental Celts were predominantly of S116 clades and therefore essentially the same is a major finding and does fly in the face of the many attempts in the past to make out the island Celts as Celticised pre-Celts that were somehow very different from 'real' continental Celts (even considered racially different in old pre-WWII books). The fact that S116 further splits into other clades does not change the basic fact that they are R1b1b2 S116 people in the main. Whatever its origin, the Gauls would seem to have shared this heavy doze of S116 with the island Celts. Indeed, you could say that S116 was the (only?) common denominator shared by all former Celtic speaking areas. That makes it likely (but perhaps does not totally prove) that S116 is the genetic trace of the peoples who spread Celtic or at least the west Indo-European dialect that would become Celtic in the west of Europe. Other scenarios are possible but the frequent correlation of especially high S116 levels with former Celtic speaking areas seems a heck of a coincidence.

That sounds like a reasonable interpretation to me, which is not to say that all P312 (and subclades) was Celtic; no doubt much of it was not. Still, it's kind of hard not to see the correlation between the old stomping grounds of the Celts and the distribution of P312 and its descendants.

Before someone accuses me of being a "Celtomaniac" or Celtophile, I want to say it took me awhile to wrap my mind around the idea that my y-dna line was probably Celtic. I grew up thinking I was some kind of Germanic. That self concept was near and dear to my heart.

What I meant by `may or may not have not been a tribe ' small groups or families may have left several areas and on entering Europe became a`tribe' or a larger tribe may have split. Basically could they have been a mixture in there home land and a number of diffent subclades probably closely related. I say closely related because a few big things stand out (to me any way) that after around 10,000 BC there seems to the emergance of lactose tollerancethe first evidance of TB (9,000 BC (I was thinking there might be a link)) ,blue/green eyes domestication of the horse, metalworking, but I'm new to this genetic study and proably get most things wrong.

Have you read "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World" by David Anthony?http://tiny.cc/9on3g

I think you'd find it interesting. I don't remember anything about TB, but he definitely researches horse riding, metal working and the Proto-Indo-European Language.

Prior to the early DNA interpretations and prior to recent attempts to push the Celts back into the early Bronze Age or even the Neolithic in recent times, it was for generations assumed were most of the megaliths were the work of pre-Celts who were displaced by the Celts. However, it was also implied for a long time that the modern 'fringe' Celts of Britain and Ireland were largely different from the continental Celts.

R1b1b2, especially S116 seems to disprove this. S116 seems to dominate in all of the former continental and island Celtic areas (which is not to say that S116 was only Celtic). I think the fact that DNA is implying that both the island and continental Celts were predominantly of S116 clades and therefore essentially the same is a major finding and does fly in the face of the many attempts in the past to make out the island Celts as Celticised pre-Celts that were somehow very different from 'real' continental Celts (even considered racially different in old pre-WWII books). The fact that S116 further splits into other clades does not change the basic fact that they are R1b1b2 S116 people in the main. Whatever its origin, the Gauls would seem to have shared this heavy doze of S116 with the island Celts. Indeed, you could say that S116 was the (only?) common denominator shared by all former Celtic speaking areas. That makes it likely (but perhaps does not totally prove) that S116 is the genetic trace of the peoples who spread Celtic or at least the west Indo-European dialect that would become Celtic in the west of Europe. Other scenarios are possible but the frequent correlation of especially high S116 levels with former Celtic speaking areas seems a heck of a coincidence.

I'm having a tough time making the leap from maps of U106+ and P312+ distribution to "one includes Celtic areas and the other doesn't" (which would be needed to support this theory). The overlap between the two distributions is extensive. I know why P312+ was originally thought of as Celtic - it was primarily a one-person writeup that became very popular. But does modern data really show this - I just can't figure out how to ignore the overlap.

But as a related aside, I very much agree with the recent part of this thread where Mike and others responded to the question relating to "could someone's direct ancestors have been individually this or that but in total from many cultures, including some thought to be mutually exclusive in some DNA sense?". I couldn't agree more with Mike's thoughts about how likely this was, due both to the incredible amount of tribal and population upheaval in Europe in the last 3,000-4,000 years alone, and due to remembering that NONE of these people had the slightest clue what DNA was and so whatever happened, happened - it wasn't directed because there was nothing visible about Y-DNA to let people purposely control "the experiment" across thousands of years. There was a large element of chance involved, it wasn't preordained. Most of the theories I've heard here seem typical of historians who claim that "something was destined to happen" when we know of many cases where the simplest uncontrolled factor determined the outcome. Do we really believe that European population history fits one simple model?

I am not saying that S116 was Celtic and U106 Germanic in origin. I think there is every chance when they split from the p310 root (which seems to be thought of as not much older) then both branches would have been speaking the same language. That could have been some sort of Centum west Indo-European language that had not yet further developed in the direction of any of the dialect branches. At that point in time what proportion of S116 and U106 was in any given area may have had no impact at all on language. There is evidence from river names of a phase in Europe when Indo-European had arrived but had not yet developed in the direction of Celtic, Italic, Germanic etc. My own feeling is that the initial proportions of P310 clades was really chance and that all P310 must have spoken the same language in the apparently short period when the sequence of SNPs from P310-S116/U106-U152-L21 took place. The estimates for the age of those SNPs is far too close to imagine anything other than that the early S116 people (including early U152 and L21 people) and U106 people were nearly identical linguistically. The estimates seem to be in the region of a few centuries not millenia, far too little time for any meaningful linguistic or cultural difference to have existed between S116 and U106 at the outset. I think the actual distinctions that led to the big Indo-European dialect blocks only developed over time and was based on geography and interaction networks.

Now by chance it does seem that the Celtic network or the area where Celtic developed did seem to encapsulate a lot of S116 but it is also likely that some fell into the area where Germanic was developing too as appears to be the case today. However, that all said, there is no denying that S116 is very strong in the former Celtic speaking areas of both the isles and the continent. My main point is not that S116 was distinctly Celtic from the onset or that all of it was ever Celtic. My main point is that it appears that S116 is very high in both the continental and isles former-Celtic areas. This is contrary to the long-held idea that the Celts of the isles, particularly the Celtic-fringers were Celticised pre-Celts. S116 means this is false. I think its impossible to underestimate how revolutionary that is. This idea started in the Victorian era, remained strong afterwards and to be honest even until today there was a strong assumption of the isles Celts as some sort of Celticised natives. It seems possible that what we are seeing is too things - the destruction of that distinction between the island Celts and the continental ones AND also the probability that the dispersal of the genes that predominate in both groups and perhaps the root west-Indo-European language was rather earlier than the Iron Age and end of Bronze Age periods that had become popularly assumed to be the period of the dispersal of the Celtic languages. Even without the DNA evidence it was becoming increasingly clear that the spread of Celtic pre-dated the La Tene and Hallstatt periods in western Europe.

My personal view is that Celtic did not spread as such. During the period of actual spread through migration, the people were just west Indo-Europeans not yet differentiated into Celts, Germans etc. I think that the division into those major dialects came centuries after when these west Indo-European peoples started to break off into separate interacting groups based on geography, political power and trade. The great majority of the S116 people were captured into the political sphere which led to the Celtic (and Italic) languages but perhaps a chunk of S116 in the north wasnt.

...Now by chance it does seem that the Celtic network or the area where Celtic developed did seem to encapsulate a lot of S116 but it is also likely that some fell into the area where Germanic was developing too as appears to be the case today. However, that all said, there is no denying that S116 is very strong in the former Celtic speaking areas of both the isles and the continent. My main point is not that S116 was distinctly Celtic from the onset or that all of it was ever Celtic. My main point is that it appears that S116 is very high in both the continental and isles former-Celtic areas. This is contrary to the long-held idea that the Celts of the isles, particularly the Celtic-fringers were Celticised pre-Celts. S116 means this is false. I think its impossible to underestimate how revolutionary that is. ... Even without the DNA evidence it was becoming increasingly clear that the spread of Celtic pre-dated the La Tene and Hallstatt periods in western Europe.

My personal view is that Celtic did not spread as such. During the period of actual spread through migration, the people were just west Indo-Europeans not yet differentiated into Celts, Germans etc. I think that the division into those major dialects came centuries after when these west Indo-European peoples started to break off into separate interacting groups based on geography, political power and trade. The great majority of the S116 people were captured into the political sphere which led to the Celtic (and Italic) languages but perhaps a chunk of S116 in the north wasnt.

With one tweak to your logic, that makes a great deal of sense to me. And the tweak is what I was asking about to begin with and I think I see what may be the missing piece for me.

Going back to Reply #7 in this thread, Mike quoted another post from you where you were commenting on how surprisingly strong U106+ modern distribution is in places where people expected it to be missing due to essentially giving way to U152+. This has been a point I've made repeatedly. There is something going on along the length of the Rhine, and the real strength of U106+ in numbers is not in the Netherlands, it's weighted towards South and Central Germany. With its extent into eastern Europe and small spillover into Spain and Italy, I'm convinced it didn't move upriver from the Netherlands to the source of the Rhine, it moved the other way. You were close to saying that (maybe unintentionally) but backed off on two counts: first, that maybe this is just American sampling at work, and second, that U106+ plummets to 3% in NW Switzerland. But you have to look at that number again. Switzerland in that same study uniformly ranges from 12% to 19% - only that one number is out of line. And it's in a sample of 15 people with 1 U106+ person. Even northern Italy is showing almost 6% U106+ in that study, and people expected it to be almost 0 there. What if that 3% were redone with a bigger sample (maybe not one village <g>) and ended up being in line with the rest? How might that change your logic?

To jump to where I'm headed: I see extensive overlap. If all your logic makes sense when related to S116, it continues to make sense if you just pull in the U106+ overlap and realize that there is no need or scientific reason to include one SNP and not the other. The later Celtic areas encapsulate high percentages of U106 concentration as well (and large numbers of men in real terms). So unless you're still working from the original Netherlands/Frisian label and think they all showed there post-Celt-time and then moved on into Eastern Europe and Italy, I think you've hit the nail on the head. The splits down into S-116 and U106+ branches occurred very close together temporally and (based on this overlap, I think...) physically. So until fairly recently, any patterns seen involving S-116 in the La Tene and Hallstatt geographies probably involved U106+ in pretty much the same way.

I'm not sure I grasp your idea enough yet, but this also seems to suggest that not ignoring the U106+ strength in Germany and Switzerland strengthens your overall conclusion. Because now, the number of actual men spreading out to the various secondary territories is much higher because it's not limited to one major subclade. later, you do get more differentiation around the fringes, possibly when individual tribes choose to stop while others move on. Or that may have happened much later. Just as you mention S-116 in concert with concentrations in "the isles", look at the percentage of U106+ distribution in England - 25% for the most part. Isn't that significant if that were included in your main point?

Probably the key thing here is an assumption to date that U106 really came from somewhere else north and west, was somehow newer, and somehow overlaid what went on earlier in Central Europe and the La Tene and Hallstatt areas. Is that really what the distributions suggest, or do they possibly suggest that it may have originated there or expanded from there along the main rivers, and not just to the NW? What does diversity suggest? I think some of the higher numbers for that in Myres et al 2010 were east of Germany. If so, a Netherlands or northern German origin doesn't look too likely - but I think the modern distribution really says the same thing - U106+ didn't originate in the Netherlands and probably didn't undergo its main expansion there either.

In your prior quote, you looked at what people were saying about where U106+ sat and then mused on how the numbers didn't seem to reflect the expectations. You zeroed in on that 3% after noting how strong U106+ was in southern Germany and eastern France, contrary to the buzz. I think the 3% is the aberration and possibly isn't even realistic. As I joked before, seeing that in the rest of the U106+ Switzerland data is like saying one small village in NW Switzerland somehow fended off all U106+ people on purpose, at least compared to its neighbors.

So I'll modify my question to be something like: given the modern distribution of S-116 and the encapsulation of both that and U106+ in areas that later became Celtic, doesn't it seem likely that what happened to the one in the center of Europe happened to the other, and that both radiated out of there together in many cases? We obviously ended up with visible variation around the edges of such an expansion, but doesn't the extent of the overlaps tell us something just as important as the differences at the fringes? And coincidentally, doesn't that strengthen your observation that an actual movement of Celtic peoples (eventually) may have occurred even into the Isles? Twice as many major subclades involved gives you much greater range and power than assuming one spread and the other stayed put (or arrived so late that it just totally muddied up the picture by making non-temporal overlaps look like maybe full overlaps).

It's late, so I hope this all makes some linear sense. I think it's time a lot of preconceptions about U106+ and Central European genetic history get reexamined. I think it is an equal partner with its peers in that history instead of somehow a latecomer that can just be left out of the discussion at will. You definitely started down that road, so I don't mean to pick on you - I think it's great that you started checking the numbers thoroughly.

...Now by chance it does seem that the Celtic network or the area where Celtic developed did seem to encapsulate a lot of S116 but it is also likely that some fell into the area where Germanic was developing too as appears to be the case today. However, that all said, there is no denying that S116 is very strong in the former Celtic speaking areas of both the isles and the continent. My main point is not that S116 was distinctly Celtic from the onset or that all of it was ever Celtic. My main point is that it appears that S116 is very high in both the continental and isles former-Celtic areas. This is contrary to the long-held idea that the Celts of the isles, particularly the Celtic-fringers were Celticised pre-Celts. S116 means this is false. I think its impossible to underestimate how revolutionary that is. ... Even without the DNA evidence it was becoming increasingly clear that the spread of Celtic pre-dated the La Tene and Hallstatt periods in western Europe.

My personal view is that Celtic did not spread as such. During the period of actual spread through migration, the people were just west Indo-Europeans not yet differentiated into Celts, Germans etc. I think that the division into those major dialects came centuries after when these west Indo-European peoples started to break off into separate interacting groups based on geography, political power and trade. The great majority of the S116 people were captured into the political sphere which led to the Celtic (and Italic) languages but perhaps a chunk of S116 in the north wasnt.

With one tweak to your logic, that makes a great deal of sense to me. And the tweak is what I was asking about to begin with and I think I see what may be the missing piece for me.

Going back to Reply #7 in this thread, Mike quoted another post from you where you were commenting on how surprisingly strong U106+ modern distribution is in places where people expected it to be missing due to essentially giving way to U152+. This has been a point I've made repeatedly. There is something going on along the length of the Rhine, and the real strength of U106+ in numbers is not in the Netherlands, it's weighted towards South and Central Germany. With its extent into eastern Europe and small spillover into Spain and Italy, I'm convinced it didn't move upriver from the Netherlands to the source of the Rhine, it moved the other way. You were close to saying that (maybe unintentionally) but backed off on two counts: first, that maybe this is just American sampling at work, and second, that U106+ plummets to 3% in NW Switzerland. But you have to look at that number again. Switzerland in that same study uniformly ranges from 12% to 19% - only that one number is out of line. And it's in a sample of 15 people with 1 U106+ person. Even northern Italy is showing almost 6% U106+ in that study, and people expected it to be almost 0 there. What if that 3% were redone with a bigger sample (maybe not one village <g>) and ended up being in line with the rest? How might that change your logic?

To jump to where I'm headed: I see extensive overlap. If all your logic makes sense when related to S116, it continues to make sense if you just pull in the U106+ overlap and realize that there is no need or scientific reason to include one SNP and not the other. The later Celtic areas encapsulate high percentages of U106 concentration as well (and large numbers of men in real terms). So unless you're still working from the original Netherlands/Frisian label and think they all showed there post-Celt-time and then moved on into Eastern Europe and Italy, I think you've hit the nail on the head. The splits down into S-116 and U106+ branches occurred very close together temporally and (based on this overlap, I think...) physically. So until fairly recently, any patterns seen involving S-116 in the La Tene and Hallstatt geographies probably involved U106+ in pretty much the same way.

I'm not sure I grasp your idea enough yet, but this also seems to suggest that not ignoring the U106+ strength in Germany and Switzerland strengthens your overall conclusion. Because now, the number of actual men spreading out to the various secondary territories is much higher because it's not limited to one major subclade. later, you do get more differentiation around the fringes, possibly when individual tribes choose to stop while others move on. Or that may have happened much later. Just as you mention S-116 in concert with concentrations in "the isles", look at the percentage of U106+ distribution in England - 25% for the most part. Isn't that significant if that were included in your main point?

Probably the key thing here is an assumption to date that U106 really came from somewhere else north and west, was somehow newer, and somehow overlaid what went on earlier in Central Europe and the La Tene and Hallstatt areas. Is that really what the distributions suggest, or do they possibly suggest that it may have originated there or expanded from there along the main rivers, and not just to the NW? What does diversity suggest? I think some of the higher numbers for that in Myres et al 2010 were east of Germany. If so, a Netherlands or northern German origin doesn't look too likely - but I think the modern distribution really says the same thing - U106+ didn't originate in the Netherlands and probably didn't undergo its main expansion there either.

In your prior quote, you looked at what people were saying about where U106+ sat and then mused on how the numbers didn't seem to reflect the expectations. You zeroed in on that 3% after noting how strong U106+ was in southern Germany and eastern France, contrary to the buzz. I think the 3% is the aberration and possibly isn't even realistic. As I joked before, seeing that in the rest of the U106+ Switzerland data is like saying one small village in NW Switzerland somehow fended off all U106+ people on purpose, at least compared to its neighbors.

So I'll modify my question to be something like: given the modern distribution of S-116 and the encapsulation of both that and U106+ in areas that later became Celtic, doesn't it seem likely that what happened to the one in the center of Europe happened to the other, and that both radiated out of there together in many cases? We obviously ended up with visible variation around the edges of such an expansion, but doesn't the extent of the overlaps tell us something just as important as the differences at the fringes? And coincidentally, doesn't that strengthen your observation that an actual movement of Celtic peoples (eventually) may have occurred even into the Isles? Twice as many major subclades involved gives you much greater range and power than assuming one spread and the other stayed put (or arrived so late that it just totally muddied up the picture by making non-temporal overlaps look like maybe full overlaps).

It's late, so I hope this all makes some linear sense. I think it's time a lot of preconceptions about U106+ and Central European genetic history get reexamined. I think it is an equal partner with its peers in that history instead of somehow a latecomer that can just be left out of the discussion at will. You definitely started down that road, so I don't mean to pick on you - I think it's great that you started checking the numbers thoroughly.

Certainly when I was just looking at the project maps the Rhine looked like the major overlap of U152, L21 and U106 while other areas tended to be less mixed. The overlap was something I did think was significant. The concept of atypical build ups of one clade on surfing the head of an expansion (i.e. at the extremes away from the source) is interesting. It would again suggest that the overlap area is more important than the areas of greatest concentration. I take your point about U106 and yes it is perhaps a little unfair to see it as a northern European intrusion into the western and central Europe in historical times. I suppose only fine grained looking at variance of each clade could establish the order they arrived in any given area. I must admit I have already half forgotten Myres findings about U106. Am I right in saying it sort of didnt support the north-south divide idea between U106 and S116 in Germany???

Certainly when I was just looking at the project maps the Rhine looked like the major overlap of U152, L21 and U106 while other areas tended to be less mixed. The overlap was something I did think was significant. The concept of atypical build ups of one clade on surfing the head of an expansion (i.e. at the extremes away from the source) is interesting. It would again suggest that the overlap area is more important than the areas of greatest concentration. I take your point about U106 and yes it is perhaps a little unfair to see it as a northern European intrusion into the western and central Europe in historical times. I suppose only fine grained looking at variance of each clade could establish the order they arrived in any given area. I must admit I have already half forgotten Myres findings about U106. Am I right in saying it sort of didnt support the north-south divide idea between U106 and S116 in Germany???

So in that study, U106+ in the total population was higher in the South, though I'm not sure the difference would be statistically significant. As a % of M-269, the North edges the South. In terms of sample size, the South and West samples are noticeably larger than the East and West samples, and the [all of] sample is 19 people.

For Switzerland in total, the combined samples include 175 people of whom 22 are U106+ (U152+ has 32). That yields an overall % U106/All men of 12.57% and U106+ as % of M-269 of 23.91%. Not bad for an SNP that people think stops at the Swiss border!

I think it was easy to have a mindset of "U106 is a late invader of the Alps/southern Germany" when people believed it didn't have a solid presence there. But by now, we should be noticing that this isn't what the projects show for sure and now isn't what the studies show. It's a major subclade in those areas. So if a similar subclade is assumed to have a long presence there due to its weighting, it seems gratuituously inconsistent to insist that U106+ arrived much later (which I know you personally are not doing).

For fun, I have a little hypothesis about the frequency peak of U106 in the Netherlands (as a % of M-269): wave interference peaks similar to what you see when a wave crosses an area, reflects off a far edge, and creates even higher peaks when the returning wave and the continuing original waveform meet to create 2x frequencies or deeper troughs. If all movement had been one-way into England from the Netherlands, this would obviously not be a factor. But if people moved and bred back and forth across the area, then maybe a place of increased frequency is actually normal peaks meeting and cresting even higher...